There were local courts of the vill, borough, manor, hundred, county, sheriff, escheator, and royal bailiff, with overlapping jurisdictions. The county court in its full session, that is, as it attended the itinerant justices on their visitation, contained the archbishops, bishops, priors, earls, barons, knights, and freeholders, and from each township four men and the reeve, and from each borough twelve burgesses. It was still the folkmote, the general assembly of the people. In 1293, suitors who could not spend 40s. a year within their county were not required to attend their county court.
The most common plea in the hundred court was trespass. It also heard issues concerning services arising out of land, detention of chattels, small debts, wounding or maiming of animals, and personal assaults and brawls not amounting to felony. It met every three weeks. The sheriff held his turn twice a year and viewed frankpledge once a year. In Chancery, the court of the Chancellor, if there is a case with no remedy specified in the law, that is similar to a situation for which there is a writ, then a new writ may be made for that case. This was called "trespass on the case". This covered indirect as well as direct contact with a person, land, or chattels. An example is that trespasss would not apply to a boat whose rope attaching it to land was cut because the trespass did not have contact with the boat. Only the rope would be the result of the trespass. Trespass on the case would include the boat. The two chancery justices were the Lord Chancellor and the Master of the Rolls.
When Edward I came to the throne, over half of the approximately 600 hundred courts had gone under the jurisdiction of a private lord owing to royal charter, prescriptive right, and usurpation. The sheriff's powers in these hundreds varied. In some, the sheriff had no right of entry. So Edward I created the writ of Quo Warranto [by what right], by which all landholders exercising manor or franchise jurisdictions must bring their ancestors' charters before a traveling justice for the Common Pleas for examination and interpretation as to whether they had a charter or were going beyond their charters and infringing upon the jurisdiction of the Royal Court. As a result, many manor courts were confined to manorial matters and could no longer view frankpledge or hear criminal cases, which were reserved for the royal courts. In the manor courts which retained criminal jurisdiction, there was a reassertion of the obligation to have present a royal coroner, whose duty it was to see that royal rights were not infringed and that the goods of felons were given to the Crown and not kept by the lords. Some who could not produce a charter lost it; but later, uninterrupted use of a jursdiction since 1189 sufficed to retain that jurisdiction.
In the manor courts, actions of debt, detinue, and covenant were frequent. Sometimes there are questions of a breach of warranty of title in agreements of sale of land. Accusations of defamation were frequent; this offense could not be taken to the King's court, but it had been recognized as an offense in the Anglo-Saxon laws. In some cases, the damages caused are specifically stated. For instance, defamation of a lord's grain would cause other purchasers to forbear buying it. There are frequent cases of ordinary thefts, trespasses, and assaults. The courts did rough but substantial justice without distinction between concepts such as tort and contract. In fact, the action of covenant was the only form of agreement enforceable at common law. It required a writing under seal and awarded damages. Manor court law was not technical, but elastic, and remedies could include injunctions, salary attachment, and performance of acts. The steward holding the manor court was often a lawyer.
Some pleas in the manors of the abbey of Bec were:
1. -Hugh le Pee in mercy (fine, 12d.) for concealing a sheep for half a year. Pledges, Simon of Newmere, John of Senholt
2. -William Ketelburn in mercy (fine, 13s.4d.) for divers trespasses. Pledge, Henry Ketelburn.
3. -Hugh Derwin for pasture, 6d. Richard Hulle for divers trespasses, 12d. Henry Stanhard for pasture, 6d.
4. -William Derwin for a trespass, 6d.; pledge, William Sperling.
5. -Hugh Hall gives the lord 12d. that he may have the judgment of the court as to a tenement and two acres of land, which he demands as of right, so he says. And it being asserted that the said land is not free[hold] let the court say its say. And the court says that the tenement and one of the two acres are of servile condition and that the other acre is of free condition. The case is reserved for the lord's presence. Pledge, John Brian.